Dumped my bike, but I'm proud!

[corksil]

Shot a tight gap across traffic into a parking lot today (damn thanksgiving traffic, don't get me started)... and as I pulled into the lot, some kid cut me off in a pickup truck and instantly came to a complete stop. I grabbed the front brake as to not run into the back of his truck, washed out the front tire to the left (whilst turning right sharply off the road).

Turned the bars so the bar end hit the ground instead of the fairing getting crunched down on as the bike fell over.. dumped the bike on the ground and stepped off quite gracefully I might add, instantly started fuming and started stomping toward the passenger side of the truck ready to fuarking snap on the guy. Some kid rolled down the window an inch and shakily asked if I was alright..

When I saw how scared the kid looked through the window I got myself under control and angrily waved him off on his way.

Man I don't know how to feel about it.. on one hand I'm glad I got myself together and didn't spaz on the guy and catch an assault charge in broad daylight with everyone watching at a shopping center, but on the other hand I'm still quite irritated that people completely disregard motorcycles and cut them off, pull out in front of them, and act like they don't exist because they don't have the brain to look around before pulling out. I'm not a violent individual, but sometimes things happen and rage seems like the only logical way to deal with the situation.

Anyways, I didn't damage anything, except for a new scratch on the bar end/exhaust pipe, so I'm glad. Also glad that I kept it together and didn't fuarking lose my isht on the guy and start a fight..

On the other hand it still irritates me. The guy didn't even stop for longer than a few seconds or offer to help pick up my bike. He certainly looked a little scared and I don't blame him (I'm kind of a big guy), but c'mon where's the basic human decency?

/vent.

Life goes on I suppose. You guys aren't really the people I'm trying to get my point across to because you all ride and know how it is on a bike, but PLEASE -- tell your non-riding cager friends to look around for motorcycles and always look twice before pulling out into traffic, parking lots, etc.

Thanks, I've spoken my piece and now I will let this go.

[Brian]

They think people like us with motorcycles are trying to compensate for our small groins... quite the contrary though. Glad you didn't get hurt, and yes it's very irritating.

[Alex]

I don't understand why the bike fell over. If the front end washed, and the bike still didn't travel far enough to hit the truck or anything else, you need to figure out what you'd have done differently to keep the bike upright in the same situation. I'd spend some time practicing emergency braking, so it becomes second nature when the inevitable dumbass comes across your path again. As you've mentioned, it's pretty much a given that we run into silliness on the roads from time to time; the better prepared we are to deal with them the better off we'll be.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by corksil

..............Thanks, I've spoken my piece and now I will let this go.

Sorry about your mishap, TC

There are many decent people around, but the less decent one frequently crosses our path and we have to treat that encounter like what really is: just a person that doesn't know how to behave any better.

The best we can do is to stay super-alert and to practice frequently for that unavoidable bad situation:

http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124754

http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showt...064#post658064

Glad you didn't get hurt

[Used Ninja]

Luckily, throughout my years of being on two wheels I've never had anything bad happen, nor any drops... one car tried turning left on a yellow (downtown, ugh) while I was going straight on yellow... I just swerved quickly to the right.

Then, a truck (always a truck...) once slowly merged onto my lane and I was like what the eff is going on here so I just squeezed my brakes and let him merge.

Fingers crossed.

[choneofakind]

Learn from this mishap.

Originally Posted by corksil

I grabbed the front brake as to not run into the back of his truck, washed out the front tire to the left (whilst turning right sharply off the road).

^^Remember you only have $10.00 of grip budget to split between turning and braking. Can't expect to spend $12.00, you'll just lock and skid, as I'm sure you learned today. Separate turning and braking actions whenever possible to avoid what you did today.

If you skid the front while upright, you can unlock it and go about your merry way. If you're off the brakes, you can throw the bike into a turn in an instant. Can't do both at the same time. That's why you went down; you demanded too much of the front tire too suddenly.

Originally Posted by corksil

Turned the bars so the bar end hit the ground instead of the fairing getting crunched down on as the bike fell over.

This is just as lame as when people 'lay er down' to stop faster than with their brakes. I call BS here. You locked the front while also trying to turn when you panicked and asked too much of the front tire. Then, the bars jerked to the blocks like they do in that situation and you fell over. Of all the thoughts going through your mind, "oh my gosh my fairings!!" was miles behind, "DAFUQ?!??". Crashing is fine. Admitting you panicked and made a mistake is fine. Playing off panic reactions as controlled and thoughtful actions is lame. I know the feeling of a panic. If you had that much time to think about your fairings, you had time to use some more modulation skill on that brake lever. Ergo, you did not intentionally turn the bars, that was a product of the locked front wheel.

[csmith12]

Way to keep your cool and chin up. Dat's what's up.

[corksil]

Originally Posted by Alex

I don't understand why the bike fell over. If the front end washed, and the bike still didn't travel far enough to hit the truck or anything else, you need to figure out what you'd have done differently to keep the bike upright in the same situation. I'd spend some time practicing emergency braking, so it becomes second nature when the inevitable dumbass comes across your path again. As you've mentioned, it's pretty much a given that we run into silliness on the roads from time to time; the better prepared we are to deal with them the better off we'll be.

Yes I should definitely practice panic braking in a parking lot. I've considered an MSF course, but for the 100 bucks I've lurked in the shadows and watched the entire event and didn't see anything I couldn't practice on my own. Didn't really see many womens attending either so there'd be no ulterior motive.

Thanks for posting, keep running this excellent site.

Originally Posted by Motofool

Sorry about your mishap, TC

There are many decent people around, but the less decent one frequently crosses our path and we have to treat that encounter like what really is: just a person that doesn't know how to behave any better.

The best we can do is to stay super-alert and to practice frequently for that unavoidable bad situation:

http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124754

http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showt...064#post658064

Glad you didn't get hurt

I will have a look at those threads, and thanks for posting.

Very frustrating especially this time of year when saving 4 dollars on a television seems more appealing to people than basic human decency and traffic courtesy. It'd definitely be smart to practice some panic stops.

Originally Posted by Used Ninja

Luckily, throughout my years of being on two wheels I've never had anything bad happen, nor any drops... one car tried turning left on a yellow (downtown, ugh) while I was going straight on yellow... I just swerved quickly to the right.

Then, a truck (always a truck...) once slowly merged onto my lane and I was like what the eff is going on here so I just squeezed my brakes and let him merge.

Fingers crossed.

Yeah I've had that happen so many times. One of the main reasons I'd like to get a bigger bike... it's nice to have some extra power to downshift and blast through that tiny closing gap between the un-aware person merging and oncoming traffic.

Before I bought the 250r, my ride was a lowered and fully built honda CRX. Anyone familiar with that car knows that it's freaking TINY and once it's lowered and blacked out with tints and a dull paint job it's about as visible as a motorcycle in traffic.

I still have my CRX, but I never finished tuning it after supercharging and motor swapping 300whp in because my laptop broke. 300whp is not much, until you put it in a 1900lb chassis.

Originally Posted by choneofakind

Learn from this mishap.

^^Remember you only have $10.00 of grip budget to split between turning and braking. Can't expect to spend $12.00, you'll just lock and skid, as I'm sure you learned today. Separate turning and braking actions whenever possible to avoid what you did today.

If you skid the front while upright, you can unlock it and go about your merry way. If you're off the brakes, you can throw the bike into a turn in an instant. Can't do both at the same time. That's why you went down; you demanded too much of the front tire too suddenly.


This is just as lame as when people 'lay er down' to stop faster than with their brakes. I call BS here. You locked the front while also trying to turn when you panicked and asked too much of the front tire. Then, the bars jerked to the blocks like they do in that situation and you fell over. Of all the thoughts going through your mind, "oh my gosh my fairings!!" was miles behind, "DAFUQ?!??". Crashing is fine. Admitting you panicked and made a mistake is fine. Playing off panic reactions as controlled and thoughtful actions is lame. I know the feeling of a panic. If you had that much time to think about your fairings, you had time to use some more modulation skill on that brake lever. Ergo, you did not intentionally turn the bars, that was a product of the locked front wheel.

I agree with your observation. I guess it's how my post came off -- a little hard for me to remember things clearly. I remember the first thought through my mind when the guy cut in front of me was "You've GOT to be kidding" and then when I saw brake lights and him stopping his truck inches from my front wheel, I dunno what happened I just started raging. Stopping my bike wasn't really my primary concern, neither was swerving, or anything else logical or rational. The fact that my bike was about to sustain potential/massive damage was distantly on my mind, but not in the forefront of my thought process.

Please understand that's is difficult to explain 'rage' in a logical way to people who don't know what it feels like.

It's like my brain clicked "gonna crash, and it's this fu**king guy's fault, must translate the damage to my motorcycle to this a**hole's face asap."

Not trying to shirk any responsibility, and I admit my fault(s).

For what it's worth, when I first bought my bike, I set up a camera and got in front of a mirror while sitting on the bike and leaning it as far as I possibly could to assess exactly how far I could lean it before the kickstand/pipe dragged, what parts would touch the ground first, how I could 'safely' lay it down without smashing the fairings, which way to turn the bars so they would touch down first, how to angle the mirrors so they wouldn't be ripped off in a crash etc.. Honestly speaking I was trying to figure out if 300 bucks worth of frame sliders would really be worth protecting the investment etc.

I think I mentally resigned to the fact that I was going to drop the bike before it happened and was more concerned with smashing my way through the window of the truck and into the face of the driver who cut me off than I was with saving the bike.

Hard to explain, and thank you for posting. Hopefully you can understand part of the point I'm trying to articulate.

Originally Posted by csmith12

Way to keep your cool and chin up. Dat's what's up.

Thanks brah, I wouldn't call myself a violent individual but my record is well documented on paper. Can't afford to get in any more confrontations or altercations over something as simple as a scratched up motorcycle. Not going back to jail.

Feels like I'm kind of a level headed zen monk, but then I find myself in a situation and all of a sudden get hit with this "what the fukk happened OMG what did I do" exclamation which makes me wonder how well I know myself.

Proud how I handled it

[rasta]

You've learned Rule #1 firsthand. Cagers NEVER see you, and they ALL want to KILL you. Be like Jason Bourne and don't let those assholes get you! Proactive, not reactive.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by corksil

...............I will have a look at those threads, and thanks for posting.

Very frustrating especially this time of year when saving 4 dollars on a television seems more appealing to people than basic human decency and traffic courtesy...........

You are absolutely right about this and future cagers moves and attitudes to be very frustrating.

While battling traffic in a motorcycle, we have many reasons to get upset and become involved in violent reactions.

We have, however, a single reason not to allow ourselves to be carried away by emotions: in motorcycling, street survival requires all our mental abilities in the sharpest possible way.

Please, take a look at this additional thread when you have time:
http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=123541

Any mental energy and fractions of seconds that we use trying to educate an offending driver, or trying to inform him/her about how wrong that person did, or trying to prove us victims, may mean the difference between staying alive and moving into eternity.

The following is one of the best posts of this site ever:

Originally Posted by alex.s

You deal with stupid people every day. Doing anything but getting away from them and focusing on what you are doing is asking for trouble. Don't have an ego. Egos kill. You don't need to inform someone they have wronged you. You don't need to get mad. You don't need to do anything but keep riding your ride. Getting emotional is the quickest way to die on a motorcycle.............

[choneofakind]

Originally Posted by corksil

I agree with your observation...

*snip*

...the point I'm trying to articulate.

Trying to explain rage. Lol. Thanks Mr Highandmighty. We've all been there. I understand emotions. You don't have to explain for me.

But none of that rage explanation (or talk of looking at yourself in the mirror) relates at all to my point. My point was you need to learn from why your bike *actually* hit the ground, and forget about all those lame excuses that attempt to play off a panic as intentional actions. No motorcyclist intentionally puts their bike on the ground; their lack of skill does that.

That leads me to another point, which was brought up by motofool in the form of an alex.s quote. Check your emotions at the door when you throw a leg over that bike. If you got so angry during a traffic incident that you considered beating someone's face in, you have no place riding in traffic. Learn some self control so you can keep calm and control your bike. You can't go crashing your bike and trying to throw down with the offending cager every time you get into a traffic incident. That's not healthy.

If you hadn't been so quick to rage and had kept calm, you wouldn't have crashed. It's traffic. It's always going to be stupid. It's always going to test your anger. It's a fact of life. Deal with it.

To flow with this constructive critique, ride more defensively. When he pulled in front of you, your first instinct should be to roll off the gas and finger the brake to get safe distance ahead of you. Check your rear view so you can be sure how hard to brake, head check to know if the next lane is an option. Know what's around you, keep plenty of space. If you'd made space, you'd never have needed to brake so hard, wouldn't have panicked, wouldn't have dropped it, and wouldn't have gotten into Hulk-mode.